The meanderings of a newish mom and other randomness

Month: April 2013

I know this show is so 11 months ago but hell good musical moments are good musical moments!

This clip is from ABC’s show Duets with John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Robin Thicke and Jennifer Nettles. The preface of the show was for the judges to pick the best sounding contestant much like American Idol and The Voice but the twist is they got to sing duets with the contestants. I must admit I only checked this show out once but the one times I did is forever etched in my mind. Johnny Gray the contestant got to sing Ordinary People with John Legend. I dig John Legend as an artist, his voice is touching for lack of a better word and Ordinary People happens to be my all time favorite song by him. I think they did an excellent job of this song and the riff than Johnny sang at about 2:27 into the song still gives me chills to this day. I hope he has an album coming out soon. Check it out!

I love avocados and to our delight so does babygirl. A couple of weeks ago I spied with my hungry eyes a recipe on Food Network for Stuffed Avocados and instantly needed to try it. Last night I went to the supermarket to pick up some avocado for babygirl and decided what better time to test it out.

Ingredients

Ingredients

**the photo included mayonnaise but the mix of the other ingredients was so fresh and citrusy tasting that I opted not to use it and I totally forgot to use the cucumbers***

Avocado
Lump Crabmeat
Lime
Cilantro
Mango
Onions
Olive Oil

Step 1:
Squeeze juice from 1 half of the lime into a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro and lime zest. Whisk all 4 ingredients well.

Step 2:
Cut 1 half of the mango into small cubes.

Step 3:
Chop onions (the amount of onion is to your liking).

Step 4:
Stir mango & onions into the lime juice, olive oil, cilantro and lime zest and toss gently to ensure it is well mixed in.

Step 7:
Squeeze lime juice from the other half of the lime onto & rub lime around the meat of the avocado to prevent it from turning brown.

avocado with lime juice

Step 8:
Cut a small portion of the bottom of the avocado off to prevent it from rolling around the plate.

Step 9:
Depending on how pretty you want it to look use an ice cream scooper or spoon to place crabmeat mixture into avocado. I don’t own an ice cream scooper. If I did I’d then have to buy ice cream and since I’m trying to lose weight ice cream is the devil right about now. So I used a spoon and I think it came out pretty anyways.

Stuffed Avocado w/ crabmeat & mango

Step 10:
Stuff your face…I know we did!

I love this recipe! It was fast. No stove required. Simple ingredients. Very fresh tasting. And super healthy! I can see myself making this alot during the summer months when it’s just too hot to cook over a stove.

I absolutely wholeheartedly LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Michael Buble! Needless to say I was a happy camper last week when his new album To Be Loved was released. Although I love his entire album and the spin he put on already classic songs I kind of really like this song the most. It’s super sweet! And who knew that Resse Witherspoon could “sing”? Not this girl. Enjoy!

Let me start this post off by saying that I am a complete and total amateur when it comes to hair braiding (cornrows). Just like almost everything else in my life I have the fundamentals down I just haven’t mastered making it look pretty. So needless to say when my boyfriend (who I affectionately call Mr. Grumps) and I found out that we were having a girl I had a superficial panic attack wondering what the hell was I gonna do with her hair. If her hair was anything like mine when I was a wee one (massive, light and fluffy) I was in for it! I lucked up because my mom, g-ma and stepmom were all masterful hair braiders and so my hair was always nicely done. One of my pet peeves are beautiful baby girls with messy, unkempt hair and so in an effort not to have my babygirl be one of them I’ve borrowed my cousin Erica’s doll head (who she’s affectionately named Destiny) and have been feverishly practicing and trying to master this whole head braiding thing.

On top of my horrible braiding skills is the obstacle of that stupid “U” in the back of babygirl’s hair. For those of you who don’t know what the “U” is, it’s when the hair usually from ear to ear in the back of the head is shorter than the rest of the hair due to the child sleeping on it most of the time. So up top and in the front of her head babygirl has nice healthy, thick but manageable, braidable hair and in the back she has short, crunchy, tough, too short to braid hair. Ugh! What makes it even worse is that I honestly do try with all of my might to make it look nice and neat and then Mr. Grumps comes home and says out of nowhere her hair looks like “who shot John”! Seriously dude? Luckily for me, my mom and g-ma see my efforts and my frustrations so they’ve kind of taken over the hair situtation for the time being and all I can say is Thank God because they make miracles happen in the hair department. I’m sure Mr. Grumps is happy about it although he tries to hide it so not to hurt my feelings.

So yesterday I’m blog surfing as I like to do when I should be working and I came across pictures of Jay-Z & Beyonce’s daughter Blue Ivy on Necole Bitchie. This is kind of a big deal because they’ve done a great job thus far of keeping her out of the spotlight. Blue Ivy is about 3 months older than my babygirl and is such a beautiful little one. While viewing pictures of one of the world’s most popular babies I couldn’t help but let out a huge sigh of relief. Clearly Beyonce knows my struggle and is having the same issues as me.

Blue Ivy

Blue Ivy

So for all you parents out there who are like me and have been beating yourself up about your child’s wild hair don’t be too hard on yourself, Beyonce & Jay-Z are rich and famous and haven’t seemed to unlock the secret of taming the mane!

Video vixen Keyshia Kaoir has a new cosmetics line out called Ka’oir. It’s full of fun colored lipsticks and glitter, eyeshadows and nail polishes. When I say fun colored I mean yellow, blue, green and purple lipsticks along with more conservative colors like red, pink and nude. Celebrities like Teyana Taylor, Snooki and Trina have their own signature colors which is pretty cool.

Back on Easter Sunday I ordered Truly Outrageous which is a neon pink and Capricorn that is more of a peachy color:

I was just too excited for my new lippies to arrive because the colors are just too much fun and perfect for spring/summer. Well FINALLY they arrived this past Monday. Yes you read right, I ordered them Easter sunday which was March 31st and they did not arrive until April 22nd. When ordering there are 2 shipping options Option #1. 1 day delivery for an extra $27. Option #2. 5-7 day delivery for an extra $3.99. So if the 5-7 day delivery actually took 22 days (16 business days to be fair) I definitely would not recommend the 1 day delivery because that may take 2 weeks. I was really frustrated during the whole shipment process because let’s be honest nothing takes that long to arrive nowadays, I’ve ordered phone cases from Hong Kong on amazon.com and didn’t have to wait this long. The only saving graces are that I absolutely love the colors, they’re just the pop needed and unlike alot of matte lipsticks that I own that make my lips feel really dry this lipstick is very moisturizing and makes my lips feel pretty amazing.

If it weren’t for the whole shipping debacle I would have giving Ka’oir cosmetics 5 stars for the fun colors and the moisturizing feel of the lipsticks. But due to the unreasonable price ($27) for one day delivery that I’m pretty sure won’t actually be one day and the length of time 5-7 day delivery took I have to give them 3 and a quarter star. Hopefully the line will be sold in stores soon and then us instant gratification girls will be satisfied.

Here I am with both colors (please excuse the bathroom selfies but babygirl wouldn’t let me put my face on at home so I had to do it at work).

I like to call us the people who run the show but don’t get the dough. From a fellow Admin I really appreciate you for I know that your job goes far beyond admin work.

My job title is Administrative Assistant and I happen to love my job 64% of the time, the other 36% my co-workers should be afraid, very afraid. My boss who happens to be the head of the department will be the first to tell anyone that I run the show. I’m lucky to have a cool boss who gets me and appreciates what I do and who knows that when it’s a 36% kind of day he better stay out of my way! The buck doesn’t stop there, I’m also my boyfriend’s Administrative Pro, I love this job a bit more it’s about a 91% / 9% ratio. I keep his calendar, remember people’s names and birthdays, keep track of his keys and everything else he’s misplaced because he’d misplace his eyeballs if they weren’t in the sockets (sorry babe but you know it’s true), the things we do for love. <

So to all the admins out there who navigate and organize work & personal lives, who pretty much know how to do their job and everyone elses, who know all the gossip, have saved marriages by remembering birthdays, anniversaries, graduation days etc, who are willingly or unwillingly the person that everyone comes to to figure out a task or how something works, who are the glue that keeps your boss, department, company together. This post is for you!

I’m soooooooooooooooo very tired this morning and need a little pick me up. This song always makes me want to get up and dance, but since I can’t at the moment busting out my finest ‘in my seat’ dances will have to suffice. Enjoy!